Kelowna faced York House in the opening round of the BC girls AAA basketball tourney on Wednesday. (Wayne Leidenfrost, PNG)

Here’s a look at the EIGHT games of the day from the B.C. senior girls Triple A basketball championships. Check back here for updates throughout the day. But first, the scoreboard and the winner’s round games.

B.C. SENIOR GIRLS TRIPLE A BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPS

(at North Vancouver-Capilano University)

WEDNESDAY

TOP HALF

Quadrant A

South Kamloops 68 Terry Fox 25

Handsworth 67 Maple Ridge 62

Quadrant B

Argyle 61 Oak Bay 50

Riverside 104 Mt. Baker 43

BOTTOM HALF

Quadrant C

Claremont 48 vs. Gleneagle 38

York House 80 vs. Kelowna 52

Quadrant D

Yale 72 New Westminster 36

Brookswood 84 Prince George 28

TODAY

QUARTERFINALS

Top Half

5:15 p.m. — South Kamloops vs. Maple Ridge

7 p.m. — Riverside vs. Argyle

Bottom Half

3:30 p.m. — Claremont vs. York House

8:45 p.m. — Brookswood vs. Yale

QUADRANT B

NORTH VANCOUVER — There are a lot of dfferent ways to attack the No. 1-ranked team in B.C.

The most entertaining way belongs to Cranbrook’s Mt. Baker Wild.

The Kootenays Zone champ had the unenviable task of facing the Fraser Valley champion Riverside Rapids of Port Coquitlam in its tournament opener Wednesday in North Vancouver.

And although they came away 104-43 losers after falling behind 22-0 to open the game, the Wild earned the respect of everyone in the Capilano University Sportsplex crowd by aggressively pressing the Rapids the entire game.

The Rapids will face North Vancouver’s Argyle Pipers in a 7 p.m. quarterfinal on Thursday after Argyle played a suffocating 40 minutes of defence to top Victoria’s Oak Bay Breakers 61-50.

“Their coach must have a starter’s pistol at practice because he just throws them out there like sprinters,” remarked Riverside head coach Paul Langford of Mt. Baker bench boss Alan Nutini, who set the tone for his aggressive, game-long sub pattern by twice subbing his entire five-person unit in the game’s first five minutes.

“We play every game like that,” smiled Nutini, whose girls run the Cranbrook hills throughout the off-season just to stay in the kinbd of shape they need to be in to press every opponent for 40 minutes. “We know that we are challenged by height so we have to play with that kind of energy all the time. Our goal is always to chase and push the ball.”

The Wild hoisted up 60 three-point field goal attempts (11-of-60) on the day, the long ball accounting for 33 of its 44 points.

“They played very hard and they doubled everything,” continued Langford, whose team could never take a possession off. “They pressed us right to the final whistle. That’s the first time we’ve scored 100 in a long time and it was their pace that drove the score so high.”

That said, the Rapids, set to face the winner of Wednesday’s late game between Oak Bay and Argyle in today’s quarterfinal round, played their entire roster and got 49 points from its bench.

Simon Fraser-bound guard Michelle Spacek hit five triples for the Rapids and finished with a game-high 21 points. Megan Sherwood (14 points), Laiken Cerenzie (13), Emma Thue (12) and Desha Puri (10) all reached double figures in scoring as the Rapids shot 46 per cent from the field on the game.

“I thought our ball movement was good and we got to play a lot of kids,” said Langford of his Rapids. “But at times they got us out of our comfort zone.”

The Wild, which shot just 19 per cent from the field, got 12 points from Kaitlyn Zurrin and 10 from Katie Nutini.

The Pipers?

Their brand of bend-but-don’t break defence was consistent from start to finish.

Although Argyle built an early 17-point lead at 32-15, and Bays were able to take runs at them throughout the contest. However trying to get inside the eight-point barrier down the stretch drive proved to be impossible.

“I have been telling them for the last few weeks that every time we step on the floor that we have to be the best defensive team on the court,” said Argyle head coach Anthony Fortunaso. “I think we really did that today. Sometimes we have trouble scoring so we have to hold teams under 50 points.”

The Pipers held Oak Bay to 28 per cent shooting on the game, and they did it by never relaxing on possessions, and letting their defence lead to offence.

“They have really bought in and this is a core that has been together since Grade 8,” continued Fortunaso. “They are all digging deep and they want it really bad right now. Our (defensive) practices can get a bit crazy. I have to tell them to calm down. Every body one through 12 really gets after it every day.”

It was a comfortable victory but it gave Neil Brown an uncomfortable feeling.

“We weren’t very good, we relied on skill and we showed no emotion,” Brookswood Bobcats head coach Brown explained after his Fraser Valley finalists topped the Prince George Polars 84-28. “They don’t realize that emotion will win this tournament and skill so seldom does. So we had a talk about that.”

Despite shooting just 32 per cent from the field against the North Central B.C. champion Polars, Langley’s Bobcats came away with some stat-stuffing final numbers.

Brookswood’s 56 rebounds included a freakish 37 off the offensive glass, the latter total itself greater than the Polars 30 total caroms.

Mavia Nijjer led the Polars with 15 points but committed 13 turnovers on the night.

Brookswood advances to face the winner the Yale vs. New Westminster game in Thursday’s 8:45 p.m. semifinal.

QUADRANT A

NORTH VANCOUVER — Emma Wolfram didn’t have the best Christmas but she was enjoying her first real day of March Madness just fine, thank you very much.

Back on Dec. 25, the South Kamloops Titans’ star Grade 11 forward suffered a concussion in an automobile accident, the effects of which kept her out of the Titans’ lineup through most of January.

“She hit black ice in the car and it went off the road and hit a telephone post,” recounted South Kamloops head coach Ken Olynyk. “The post got knocked out and she hit her head. She was OK, but the car wasn’t.”

On Wednesday, in the opening round of the B.C. Triple A basketball championships at North Vancouver’s Capilano University, there was little question that the 6-foot-5 Wolfram was back in the groove, finishing with 18 points, 23 rebounds and seven blocks as the Titans rolled to a convincing 68-25 win over Port Coquitlam’s Terry Fox Ravens.

“I would get dizzy playing but I feel way better now,” said Wolfram, who this past summer saw floor time with the Canadian senior women’s national team at the Pan Am Games in Mexico. “I’d never been out of the lineup so long. I wanted to contribute to the team but I couldn’t do that sitting on the bench.”

In actuality, the Titans have endured an entire season of rotating injuries, so much so that the last practice the Titans had before leaving for Vancovuer for their first full team pratice of the entire season.

“The practice before we came down and then two games, that’s been the only time we’ve had everybody together,” said Olynyk. “It’s just been one of those seasons. I have to give the girls a ton of credit for battling the adversity.”

Yet when Olynyk described his team as “firing on all cylinders” following its 43-point win over the Ravens in which it held the PoCo squad to 21 per cent from the field, you got a better idea of why coaches voted the Titans as B.C.’s No. 1 team in The Province’s Big 10 pre-season rankings.

Virtually the entire team that lost to eventual champion W.J. Mouat in the Final Four at last season’s provincial tournament returned this season, including the likes of key performers Madi Ellis and Abby Grinberg. And on Wednesday, after some opening-quarter jitters, they indeed looked like a veteran team with a patient eye on the big prize.

In a low-scoring affair, Hamer-Jackson added 16 points for the winners, Kiersten Landrie added 10 points and six rebounds. Fox forward Katie Devaney led her team with 14 points, 15 rebounds and three blocks.

“It has just been awesome having everyone at practice,” continued Wolfram, who last season was named Top Defensive Player a the tournament as a 10th grader. “Some days we’d only have eight. Some days it was six or seven. But we’re coming together now. We’re peaking at the right time.”

It’s still too premature to project a Final Four meeting on Friday against Fraser Valley champion Riverside, with a demanding quarterfinal round on tap tonight.

But watching the Titans make statements on defence with Wolfram anchoring the middle, and then watching the entire rotation take turns scoring inside and out, it is certainly no stretch to consider South Kamloops one of the teams to beat.

“We knew we would be in tough, and we’re still in tough,” said Olynyk. “But if we’re healthy we have a shot. So do a lot of other teams. But the girls are playing well defensively, and if we keep that going we can be in all games.”

The Ravens were set to meet the winner of a late Wednesday contest between North Vancouver’s Handsworth Royals and the Maple Ridge Ramblers in a quarterfinal today at 5:15 p.m.

QUADRANT C

NORTH VANCOUVER — Shalie Dheensaw is getting her university career underway this season with the Washington State Cougars, and Shaylyn Crisp is doing likewise with the Victoria Vikes.

But while two of B.C.’s biggest talents from a season ago are no longer a part of their lineup, the Claremont Spartans still have plenty of identity left, something they showed on their way to grinding out a a 48-38 win over Coquitlam’s lunch-bucket Gleneagle Talons in the opening game of the B.C. senior girls Triple A touranment on Wednesday.

“We lost a lot of our top players (from last season) so a lot of people weren’t even expecting us to make the provincials this season,” explained Spartans’ senior guard Nikki Turner after the Victoria school’s 9-0 third quarter-closing run gave them a 38-25 lead heading into the final quarter. “I think we just dug deep because we know how badly we want this and we know how hard we had to fight to get here.”

The Spartans also had to fight hard to win.

Gleneagle, a guard-oriented team of seven players, never let up their intensity, and although they battled a case of jitters early, they made big runs at key moments. Senior guard Jaime McLaughlin, who has been battling concussion issues all season, stepped up and hit a three-point basket late in the third quarter that pulled the Talons to within 29-25. She finished with tea-high 10 points.

And senior guard Jessica Jazdarehee was the team’s most consistent force with her driving forays and her work crashing the boards for second-chance opportunities.

“They are fighters,” said Claremont head coach Kim Graves of the Talons. “I think everyone wanted to avoid playing them because they just battle with you. I feel like when we matched up against them, we lost the advantage of our effort and energy, because they put in the same or more. I was really impressed with them.”

Yet there is a lot to be said for the Spartans getting a tough first out at the tournament. And if others don’t think Claremont has a long run in them, Graves and Turner aren’t concerned.

“We came in as the underdog this year, but as long as we stay positive, that’s all that counts,” said Turner.

Added Graves: “We still look at ourselves the same way. We’re believers. I feel like we can surprise some people.”

The Spartans have advanced to face the Lower Mainland champion York House Tigers in one of four quarterfinal matchups today at 3:30 p.m. The Tigers topped the Kelowna Owls 80-52, led by 17 points and 16 rebounds off the bench from Laura Baker. Alisha Roberts added 18 points, nine rebounds and six steals for the winners, while point guard Cherub Lum finished with 13 points and six assists.

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